Ernest Gerald Isherwood:GERRY ISHERWOOD, who died on March 13th, had a long and distinguished career as an architect and town planner in the public and the private practice of architecture.
Ernest Gerald Isherwood was born in Belfast on February 4th, 1925, the son of a hotelier. As a young child he attended Foyle College in Derry. Later school years were spent in Oxford, where he then became a student at the Oxford School of Architecture.
With his studies interrupted by the second World War, Gerry joined the royal navy. While serving in a minesweeper squadron he was engaged in the rescue and recovery of survivors at Start Bay in Devon. German torpedo boats had attacked a flotilla of American landing craft on exercise in preparation for D-Day. Many hundreds perished and one of Gerry’s jobs was to establish the identity of the dead. This left a mark on Gerry, which lasted all his life.
He resumed and finished his studies of architecture at Oxford. He also qualified as a town planner and began a membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute that lasted 58 years.
His initial architectural work was with the public authority in Warwickshire. Subsequently, while with London County Council he worked on war-damaged properties in the East End of London. After a brief spell in a private practice in Stockholm, Sweden, he returned to Northern Ireland and joined the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority. He quickly rose to be assistant chief architect.
It was here in the 1950s that he met and married June Darling.
Gerry became involved in a new hospital for Derry, where he worked with the then hospital experts, Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardel.
One of his favourite projects was the general hospital in Enniskillen.
He also contributed to urgently needed single-storey ward units designed to be adaptable for differing medical uses and erected throughout Northern Ireland.
In 1965 he and George Ellis, a colleague from the Hospitals Authority, formed Isherwood and Ellis. There followed a limited amalgamation with Adair Roche and Paddy Semple (ISER), where each firm contributed to the design of the emerging new Belfast City Hospital.
By the late 1970s, Isherwood and Ellis had a portfolio of projects, including work in the health, education and social housing sectors. This included the new Antrim Area Hospital, which was the highlight of Gerry’s career.
During his long professional life he was never in any doubt that the architect was the leading building professional and he served with great distinction on the Council of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects, becoming president in 1991-92. His pride of being Irish as well as British was evident in him being made a member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland.
He retired in 1992, but he still gave freely of his time to matters of planning expertise.
He was a member of the Royal British Legion, enjoying the camaraderie which this membership gave him. He also loved his holiday house in Donegal where he enjoyed working in the garden.
Gerry Isherwood was a man of high humour with a wonderful infectious laugh and many will remember him as a great raconteur who always enjoyed a good argument. The last word is given by his retired business partner Fred Brooks who said recently, “Gerry had equanimity, always exuding calmness and composure and was at home in the company of high and low alike. He was at the same time independent and often strong willed but always a moderate. A gentleman . . . and a really nice guy”. His wife June and daughters Anne and Janet survive him.